Point of impact: These infrared Nasa images show particle debris in Jupiter's atmosphere after an asteroid hit the planet on July 19, 2009. The impact and its after-effects can be seen as the bright spot on the lower left of an image taken on July 20 (left), and as the bright smudge on the lower left of an image taken on August 16 (right). By August 2009, the debris had been sheared apart by Jupiter's winds

Researchers said the discovery was ‘intriguing’ and a reminder that the solar system is a ‘complex and violent’ place.

It was shortly after lunchtime on July 19, 2009 that amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley became the first to notice the impact from the observatory in his home in New South Wales, Australia.

He thought it was a dark spot but having got a better angle he could see it was entirely black, meaning an impact had occurred.

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He contacted Nasa and until now there has been confusion over what could have caused such spot to appear on the planet.

Two papers published in the journal Icarus have settled the issues and details how researchers used data from three infrared cameras to examine Jupiter’s atmosphere, the composition of certain gases and chemical conditions in the impact debris.

They concluded the asteroid would
have released the equivalent of five gigatons of TNT when it
crash-landed and sent debris so high into the air it went above the
cloud tops.

Burning hole: Taken three days after the impact on July 22, 2009, the bright white and yellow images show the area of collision and indicate hot temperatures and the presence of hot ammonia upwelling from deep in Jupiter's atmosphere

This caused
temperatures to rise by up to 4 Kelvin up to 42 kilometres above the
clouds, not a huge amount but of note because it was across the whole
planet.

The researchers also tracked gases such as ammonia which were thrown up from the ground when the impact took place, leading them to conclude an impact took place.

Glenn Orton, an astronomer at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said: ‘Both the fact that the impact itself happened at all and the implication that it may well have been an asteroid rather than a comet shows us that the outer solar system is a complex, violent and dynamic place, and that many surprises may be out there waiting for us.

‘There is still a lot to sort out in the outer solar system.’

The impact of the asteroid was almost exactly 15 years after Jupiter was hit by the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9.

That sparked headlines around the world when it became the first comet to be observed orbiting a planet having been snared by Jupiter’s gravitational pull around 20 years earlier.

Leigh Fletcher, a researcher at Oxford University, said: ‘Comparisons between the 2009 images and the Shoemaker-Levy 9 results are beginning to show intriguing differences between the kinds of objects that hit Jupiter’.

Space crash: These eight images were taken by telescopes in the days following the collision